Book 2 - Chapter 5 - Page 2

"I think Philip Wakem seems a nice boy, Tom," she said, when they went
out of the study together into the garden, to pass the interval before
dinner. "He couldn't choose his father, you know; and I've read of
very bad men who had good sons, as well as good parents who had bad
children. And if Philip is good, I think we ought to be the more sorry
for him because his father is not a good man. _You_ like him, don't
you?"

"Oh, he's a queer fellow," said Tom, curtly, "and he's as sulky as can
be with me, because I told him his father was a rogue. And I'd a right
to tell him so, for it was true; and _he_ began it, with calling me
names. But you stop here by yourself a bit, Maggie, will you? I've got
something I want to do upstairs."

"Can't I go too?" said Maggie, who in this first day of meeting again
loved Tom's shadow.

"No, it's something I'll tell you about by-and-by, not yet," said Tom,
skipping away.

In the afternoon the boys were at their books in the study, preparing
the morrow's lesson's that they might have a holiday in the evening in
honor of Maggie's arrival. Tom was hanging over his Latin grammar,
moving his lips inaudibly like a strict but impatient Catholic
repeating his tale of paternosters; and Philip, at the other end of
the room, was busy with two volumes, with a look of contented
diligence that excited Maggie's curiosity; he did not look at all as
if he were learning a lesson. She sat on a low stool at nearly a right
angle with the two boys, watching first one and then the other; and
Philip, looking off his book once toward the fire-place, caught the
pair of questioning dark eyes fixed upon him. He thought this sister
of Tulliver's seemed a nice little thing, quite unlike her brother; he
wished _he_ had a little sister. What was it, he wondered, that made
Maggie's dark eyes remind him of the stories about princesses being
turned into animals? I think it was that her eyes were full of
unsatisfied intelligence, and unsatisfied beseeching affection.

"I say, Magsie," said Tom at last, shutting his books and putting them
away with the energy and decision of a perfect master in the art of
leaving off, "I've done my lessons now. Come upstairs with me."

"What is it?" said Maggie, when they were outside the door, a slight
suspicion crossing her mind as she remembered Tom's preliminary visit
upstairs. "It isn't a trick you're going to play me, now?"

"No, no, Maggie," said Tom, in his most coaxing tone; "It's something
you'll like _ever so_."

He put his arm round her neck, and she put hers round his waist, and
twined together in this way, they went upstairs.

"I say, Magsie, you must not tell anybody, you know," said Tom, "else
I shall get